Monday, December 06, 2004

Needless to say, the issue at hand is expeditionary military force, not some weird strawman about Koreans invading LA. And evading the issue by constantly implying that no one who supported the Iraq war is morally qualified to criticize those who opposed it doesn't really help matters.

This is a conversation we liberals need to have. But if we don't engage in it honestly it doesn't do any good.

It was not a "weird strawman" it was an attempt to illustrate with an over the top example that the charge that people are always against "military power" implies they would be against it even when our security was directly threatened. Whether the force is "expeditionary" or not, the point still stands. The implication was that anyone who opposed the Afghanistan war did so because they placed other concerns above our national security, something which just isn't true. It was possible (if wrong) to oppose the Afghanistan War, precisely because of a belief that it would jeapordize our national security.

As for being against "expeditionary military force" being used for purposes not directly tied to defending the country, I have no idea why that's a political problem. I'm not an isolationist, and nor are most Democratic elected officials, but frankly this country does have a pretty deep isolationist streak - mostly on the Right - which makes any other kind of use of expeditionary force rather difficult.